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Stun Pressure guide

Last time I featured on how to pick the right Mercenary when participating Free League, a PvP competition in Atlantica Online. Now Iíll be discussing one commonly used built formation for Free Leagues, which is the Stun Pressure. This is build will ensure your opponentís formation to be (if not entirely) stunned, leaving them open to attacks.

How stun works?
First of all, letís take a look on how to stun a character. To understand this, you should know the system of the stun counter, whenever your character receives 3 consecutive hits in 3 turns; your character will be stunned; only regular attacks can afflict stun counters. When in stun status, the stunned character cannot move nor perform any actions; also he wonít get any Action Power (AP) which is required to perform an action every turn, and also youíll receive twice the damage when stunned.

To remove the stun status, you need the Awakening skill from the Monk mercenary or using the Awakening scroll, or simply just let it wear out a couple of turns.

Stun strategies
Now that you know how stun works, itís time to make a strategy on how to stun your opponents. The main goal here is to constantly stun your opponents, which is sometimes called Perma Stun, so here are the strategies:

Focus on the Monk first. This is the top priority in terms of stunning as the Monk can remove the stun counters with its Awakening skill. After stunning the Monk, you can now freely stun your next targets, the Main character then any healing type mercs

Silence or Mana Seal. The easiest way to stun your opponent is by silencing the Monk. This will prevent him from removing stun counter and you can focus more on stunning and damager your opponent.
Lightning Spear. If you have a Main character with a spear weapon or even a Spearman, you can use the Lightning Spear skill; this reduces the AP of the target, use this on a line adjacent to the Monk and follow it with a regular attack for a follow up stun counter. As a mercenary with low AP cannot be used in a turn gives you an advantage to damage them or even stun them to ensure a constant perma stun.

Using an Inventor. The Inventor mercenary is a gun type merc although not that powerful compared to the Janissary and Sheriff, its skill makes him the top choice for a Stun Pressure build: The Summon Machine. This skill has the ability summon a machine, more of a tenth member of your formation, the machine summon can be random, either the spear type Ballista or the cannon type Siege Machine. This is a great addition to your team and is very useful even it attacks random as you can stun your opponents faster.

Freezing Axe or Forest Prison. Having a merc that can disable the whole frontline of your opponent in one strike is also advantageous in stun builds, as these skills can be also considered stun. Northern Vikings/Vikings and Druids have this kind of skill.
How to survive
And of course you should plan on how to increase your survivability with this build if you want to get a good standing record in Free Leagues.
Bring out good Tankers. Having a sturdy group of frontliners will increase your survival rate, as having your frontline leave an open spot can cripple your whole formation. So itís best to put Tankers, and be sure that they can also deal a decent amount of damage to your opponents too.
Always use Awakening on the Monk first. Since the stun pressure strategy can be used against you, so be sure to prioritize on the Monk, as he is the vital part of your formation, without him, you will be open to stuns, so every time he gets stun counter 1, use Awakening, the skill also heals a small portion of health so you wonít worry of getting him killed by being spiked. If you let it wait to reach stun counter 2, there are chances that you Monk can be silenced, preventing him to use his magic.

Whatís the best mercenary for the build?
In picking the right mercenaries, you should consider the ones that can attack a wide range of targets, so Cannon-type like the Cannoneer is a must. Next would be a gunner type, so the Inventor is the top choice as we mentioned in our stun strategy, you can add a Janissary as your second gunner to deal great damage. Axe type is also useful here, and Druid is the top choice because of its strong attack, second choice will be the Northern Viking. For the tank, Spartan will be your choice as it has a piercing attack (able to attack two targets in a line) and with its warcry skill that can debuff your opponent. The rest would be the Exorcist, Monk and an Oracle/Shaman.

And now for the Main Character
You have two choices on picking the right Main character type; itís either the Gun or the Cannon. Both of these are great for stun pressure because of its wide attack range, so itís all depends on your play style on which of the two you should select.

So there you have it, just follow this simple guide and youíll ensure to have a good head start in the Free League, you can try to experiment with other mercenaries to see if which combination is suitable for you, but for starters, this build is a good start.

Just to add to your awesome review... you can also remove a stun from a single merc via a main only potion called the "Stimulant" it costs 50 action points on your main and ends your mains turn. But it is very useful when your monk is stunned or sealed and going to be stunned next turn...

just another FYI from your friendly neighborhood coming back to the game player ^^

Just to add to your awesome review... you can also remove a stun from a single merc via a main only potion called the "Stimulant" it costs 50 action points on your main and ends your mains turn. But it is very useful when your monk is stunned or sealed and going to be stunned next turn...

just another FYI from your friendly neighborhood coming back to the game player ^^

ok thanks for that new info, never used that potion before, guess I overlooked it